


Deafening Quiet, Silent Roar

by FestiveFerret



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Tower, Background Avengers - Freeform, Compromise, Drawing DUM-E Like One of Steve's French Girls, Falling In Love, Get Together, Giant Sticky Frog Things, M/M, Relationship Issues, Romance, Senses: Hearing, Steve Hates Noise, Steve the Obsessive Mother Henner, Tony hates silence, Tony the Obsessive Builder, learning to get along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-25 12:51:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret
Summary: Tony hates silence after the wormhole; Steve hates loud noises after the war.But, somehow, they like each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to SirSapling and Mixie in the stony discord for the prompt that led to this fic! 
> 
> Thanks to ashes0909 for beta, and NotebookishType for batting around ideas with me.
> 
> (This fic is done, and chapters should go up quickly. )

He had two modes: Captain America mode, and Steve mode. Steve supposed that, really, he’d had both all along, he just didn’t have a name for the first until Erskine held out a hand and pulled him into the war, into a new body. The mind was the same, though.

Cap could do anything, be anything he needed to be. He wasn’t just strong, he was hard, as impenetrable as his shield. But he was also cold, empty, logical.

In Steve, he found softness, release, even peace, once in a while. But that meant shucking his star-studded shell and becoming vulnerable. And vulnerability opened the door to weakness. Loud noises, flashing lights, people screaming - sometimes it was too much. There were movies he couldn’t watch, activities he loathed doing. So, he carved out quiet where he could, in his skyscraping new home, and when he needed to, he could find an empty room, lay on the floor, close his eyes and just _be._

***

Tony didn’t like emptiness, he didn't like still. Still was where unpleasant thoughts crept in. Quiet was where a terrifying _nothing_ loomed large and black and ominous. If he stayed moving, kept pushing, he’d be alright. He drowned out the fear with pumping bass lines and screeching guitar. Worked until he was too exhausted to think, so the nightmares wouldn’t have time to creep in.

Tony faced the beginning of every day like a starting pistol going off; he always hit the ground running. Running from what? He didn’t know, but whatever it was, it scared the shit out of him.

 

* * *

 

Steve pushed on one of the glass panels - indistinguishable from the others beside it, if you didn’t know what you were looking for - and it swung open, granting him access to a large balcony. The city bustled along below, so far away that the people were tiny bugs, and the noise from the toy cars was drowned out completely by the whistling wind whipping around Avengers Tower.

Steve liked the wind; it always rushed around the tower, calm and still and predictable even when it was wild. Up here he couldn’t hear the honking taxis and screeching brakes. No one yelled, no one tried to shove a flyer in his hand, it was just him and the clouds.

And they were pretty clouds today too, bright and fluffy, like marshmallows. Steve had to admit, regular access to treats like marshmallows was a pretty wonderful part of ending up in the 21st century. Tony never let anyone in the tower want for anything so the kitchens were always stuffed to the gills.

Of course, thoughts of anything to do with Tony couldn’t drift through his mind as easily as the spun-sugar clouds wandered across the sky. Tony-thoughts had a way of hitching and catching on the inside of Steve’s mind, making him frown and squirm.

Tony was… a mystery. And one Steve wanted to solve. After the battle for the Chitauri, they had split up into a number of directions, but less than a month later Tony had sent out a mass invitation to come back and live in New York at the newly remodeled Avengers Tower. Steve had been reluctant to go - though most of their tension on the helicarrier had been the sceptre’s doing, it wasn’t like he and Stark junior had parted on friendly terms.

And yet, New York was his home. No matter where he wandered, his itchy feet turned him back towards Brooklyn. So, he had shown up on Tony’s doorstep one afternoon, expecting a couch in the corner where he could crash until he found an apartment near his old stomping ground. Instead, there had been an entire floor decked out just for him, a gym, a pool, and a soft voice in the ceiling that did wonderful things like turn on the shower just as you finished your workout so the water was nice and hot, and add marshmallows to the grocery list without letting anyone know it was you.

So he stayed.

The others had come and gone over the few months since. Clint and Natasha were still working for SHIELD, Thor spent most of his Earth time with Jane, and Bruce split his time between the tower and his travels. Steve still saw them all frequently, mostly for Assembles, sometimes just to spend time together. Most other people couldn’t fathom what they’d all been through so even when it had been weeks they’d been apart, they fell back into comfortable camaraderie. So there were long stretches of time when Steve and Tony were the only ones living there, but despite sharing a common floor with a huge kitchen, a games room, and a TV so large Steve was still a little nervous it might tip forward onto him if he sat too close, Tony spent most of his time in his workshop.

Truth be told, he rarely saw Tony at all.

He _heard_ him though. Tony seemed to carry a thunderstorm of deafening music, manic chatter, and screeching metal with him wherever he went. If there were no humans to talk to, Tony talked to JARVIS, and if he had nothing to say, he listened to music so loud it made the walls rattle. It was exhausting to be around.

But Tony himself, that was different. Despite what Steve had said on the Helicarrier, Tony was caring and compassionate and deeply self-sacrificial, even to the point of self-destruction. He was also confusing. He flitted by like a hummingbird, chattering away. He zipped into Steve’s space and out again, leaving Steve rattled and reeling, trying to piece together what had happened.

It was clear that Tony lived life in the fast lane, and Steve in the slow, but still, he wanted to get to know the man who had given him a home and, dare he say it, a bit of a family, in this loud, bright, future world. If only Tony would sit still long enough to let him.

 

* * *

 

“Put that down!” Tony yelled across the workshop, chucking his wrench after the words when the pounding chorus of “Thunderstruck” whipped them away before they could reach DUM-E. The wrench found its target and the bot dropped the piece of metal alloy he was holding and turned to glare at Tony as reproachfully as his servos allowed. “Hunk of junk,” Tony hollered at him affectionately. “Bring that back, I need it.”

DUM-E carefully gripped the wrench in his claw and whirred his way across the workshop. His wheel ricocheted off the leg of one of work tables and an entire toolbox tipped off the other end and landed on the ground with a resounding crash.

“Thanks, buddy, good job. Remind me to give you a raise.”

DUM-E held out the wrench and Tony spun it between his fingers before jamming it deep in the War Machine Mark 3 armour. It could be argued that the wrench wasn’t exactly the right tool for precision electrical systems manipulation, but if there was one thing Tony could do, it was ignore logical arguments that tried to stop him from having fun.

Something inside the guts of the armour control module went _crick_ and Tony grinned.

The blaring music dimmed a little. “Colonel Rhodes is on the line for you, Sir,” JARVIS informed him.

“Sure, put him through.” The music switched off and Rhodey’s voice filled the room instead.

“Tony?”

“Hey there, Colonel Crunch, how’s it shaking?”

“It’d be shaking over to your ugly-ass tower if you’d called me yesterday like you said you would.”

“Sorry, buddy. Some of the relays got hinky and I don’t want you accidentally punching yourself in the face when you mean to shoot someone a jaunty salute.” Tony dug the wrench in further. “I mean, I kinda do, actually. That would be amazing. All over YouTube in a heartbeat. ‘War Machine’ - sorry _‘Iron Patriot’_ \- ‘slaps himself across the face while meeting the President.’ I’d pay good money to see that. No wait, I’d pay good money to have someone bring me a bag of chips right now, that’s not saying much. Uh, I’d admit to Pepper I didn’t actually go to that meeting in Prague, but instead went to some kind of nudists’ festival, to see that -”

“Tony.”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Shut up.”

“You know sometimes I think our deep, decade-spanning, heart-wrenching love affair only goes one way. You say things that you know will hurt me. I’m hurt.” The wrench caught, slipped and sprung free, slamming Tony’s hand against the sharp edge of the dissected armour plating with a clang. “Ah fuck, I really am hurt.”

Rhodey’s sigh filled the whole workshop. “Watch you don’t lose a thumb, Stark. Just let me know when Mark 3 will be ready so I can shift around my schedule.”

“Gimmie two more days, Pudding Pop. And maybe some gauze.” Tony grabbed a grey cloth off the nearest table and pressed it against his bleeding palm. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the cloth was supposed to be white but had suffered from some unfortunate incident with a healthy amount of motor oil which was now mixed with blood in attractive brown smears across Tony’s hand.

“Hmm.”

“You alright, Tony?”

“Yeah, it’s all good. I’ll call you when the armour’s ready. Go save the world.”

“Alright, thanks.”

“And, you know, just in case it comes up, I’m sure it won’t, but, you know. If the doctors ask, it was motor oil and something that smells like menthol. Kthanksbyebuddytakecare!”

“What are you - ?!” Tony gestured and JARVIS cut Rhodey off abruptly.

“Sir, I recommend medical treatment for that wound.”

“You would, you worrywart. Why do you think I hung up on Rhodey? I don’t need you two ganging up on me any more than you already do. If I wanted that kind of advice, I wouldn’t have spent six months programming you, I would have just printed out WebMD. I’ll be fine. A little sepsis never hurt any- okay it probably kills people all the time. But if my hand turns green I’ll go to the ER, promise.”

JARVIS maintained a disapproving silence.

Too silent. Tony squirmed as the room around him buzzed with gut-twisting nothing. He could hear his heartbeat and the sharp huffs of breath that stuttered out of his nose. A creeping, stalking feeling of dread picked its way up his spine and he jumped to his feet.

“Where’re the tunes, buddy? Can’t work without my jam.”

The music picked up again, cutting in jarringly halfway through a power chord and flooding the room with a cushion of recognizable, predictable sound. Tony let a long, slow breath out between pursed lips, then knelt down, and went back to his work.

 

* * *

 

Steve tucked his foot further under his body and turned the page of his book. He never needed much sleep after the serum, so he used the time for other things: reading, drawing, breathing in the silence.

He’d chosen a big, comfy chair in the common space tonight. The lights were low and the tower was silent. It was a nice change of pace from staying in his own rooms, or going out to wander the quiet backstreets of New York in the wee hours of the morning.

He was so engrossed in his book, he didn’t notice Tony at first. The door was open, so Tony had made no noise coming in, but the slight clang of cutlery in the attached, open-plan kitchen, snapped his attention away from reading.

Steve opened his mouth to announce his presence, but Tony leaned forward over the counter, making a pained noise. Steve suddenly felt like an intruder in a private moment. He waffled, trying to decide what to say to let Tony know he was here, while at the same time feeling like it was already too late.

Then Tony spoke. “What about the rear maneuverability panels? I could rearrange -”

“That would irrevocably damage in-flight control, Sir,” JARVIS replied, cutting him off. Tony sighed and ran a stiff hand through his hair.

At first Steve had found it startling, having the rooms talk to him, but JARVIS very quickly became a part of Avengers Tower in Steve’s mind. He seemed to figure out, without needing to be told, what Steve liked and didn’t like and was always careful to be kind. He kept his voice low and never beeped or sounded any alarms - unlike in Tony’s workshop where some kind of siren or alert always seemed to be blaring. JARVIS brought the lights up slowly in the morning, and the TV always came on muted, just in case. Steve wondered how JARVIS had so easily recognized the things that made Steve uncomfortable and worked around them. Had Tony programmed him specifically to do it? Or just made him to be kind?

Who else would JARVIS have learned that compassion from, if not his creator?

And here was that compassionate creator, clearly in distress, and Steve felt an intense urge to help him. It had been too long to speak up now, though. It would be incredibly awkward to reveal himself. He turned back to his book, trying to ignore Tony until he left, but the other man kept talking and drawing his eye.

“There has to be something we haven’t tried, J.”

“There are hundreds of things we haven’t tried, Sir, but none of them -”

“Yeah, yeah, fucking smartass.” Tony pulled a bag of chips out of the cupboard and started eating them mindlessly, his gaze blank and staring at nothing. “Of course there are hundreds. C’mon, JARVIS. We have to - This is _Rhodey,_ I need to have his back. This suit has to be perfect. I can’t… And we still have Clint’s quiver upgrades to implement. And Nat didn’t ask, but those bites are hideously outdated. We could - we could cycle the voltage - yeah. Make a folder, J.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“What about Steve, what does Steve need?”

JARVIS seemed to either assume it was a rhetorical question or expected Steve to reply himself. He couldn’t. He sat, stunned. Tony was clearly exhausted, he had dark circles under his eyes and was leaning hard against the counter. He was also clearly stressing about finishing the new Iron Patriot armour. He’d been working on it for a while, but Steve hadn’t realized how much of a challenge it was turning out to be.

Yet, with all that on his plate, he was looking for more projects, things for the team, to help them fight, to keep them safe. Things for Steve.

“The uniform, it has weaknesses. I should review them,” Tony decided. “Get me specs. Also get me coffee. And…” Tony’s gaze swept across the room and Steve stiffened. “And - what time is it?”

“It’s 3:42 in the morning, Sir.”

“Right, okay.” Tony grabbed a mug and held it under the JARVIS-automated coffee maker until it had burbled out a full dose. He pushed the chips back into the cupboard and wandered off into the dark night.

Steve waited until he was sure Tony was long gone. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“How long has it been since Tony slept? Can you tell me that?”

“Mr. Stark slept for 3 and a half hours, 27 hours ago. He has been awake since.”

Steve swore. That was less sleep than he’d had himself. “And he’s still working?”

“Indeed.” Even JARVIS managed to sound unamused.

“Can you -? Um, can you let me know if he needs anything? Or - or if he goes to bed? So I can stop worrying.”

“Of course, Captain Rogers.”

“Thanks.”

It was three more hours of Steve trying and failing to read his book before JARVIS spoke up again. “Excuse me, Captain. Mr. Stark has fallen asleep.”

There was something pointed in his tone of voice.

“He’s gone to bed?”

“Unfortunately, not. He is currently asleep in the workshop.”

Steve dropped his book and pushed to his feet. He walked down to the workshop quickly. When he pushed open the door he was assailed with Tony’s usual pounding music, though it hushed as he crossed the threshold.

Tony was still seated at his desk, sprawled face down over a pile of notes and papers, his arms spread out across his work. Steve circled around to his side and peered down at him in the twin blue glows from the holoscreens and the arc reactor.

Tony’s eyes were softly shut, his mouth slightly open. His breathing was slow and even, a small noise leaking out with every exhale. His body was completely slack across the desk and a small puddle of drool had accumulated on what looked to be a very important schematic for Iron Patriot. There was a half-healed cut across his palm that Steve couldn’t remember him getting in battle, and his fingers were calloused and stained dark from working elbow-deep in machinery for so long.

It was so unusual, seeing Tony still and quiet that Steve had the intense urge to reach out and run his fingers soothingly through his hair, see if he could get the last creases of tension around Tony’s eyes to fade.

Instead, he placed his hand on Tony’s back and rubbed until Tony flickered awake.

“Huhmm?” Tony blinked up at him.

“You fell asleep. Time for bed,” Steve told him gently, hoping he’d made the right choice in waking him. He didn’t want Tony going right back to his work. “Let’s go.” He tried to slip a little ‘Captain’ into his voice.

Tony swallowed, his eyes sliding, unseeing, around the workshop. “‘k.”

Steve stepped back and Tony followed, still half asleep. Steve led him to the elevator, then up to his floor. He pushed Tony out at the penthouse, holding the door open as he watched him shuffle off across the living room and towards the bedroom. When he disappeared, Steve hit the button for the common room.

Tony was working too hard, stretching himself too thin trying to protect them all. Steve wasn’t his babysitter, or his mother, but he was his team leader and it was important that his team was well rested and at their best. He couldn’t watch Tony fall in battle because he’d worn himself out looking for things to fix for the rest of them. Steve returned to his chair in the living room and picked up his book.

“JARVIS? Could you let me know if Tony gets up again before ten?”

“Of course, Captain.” Steve would have sworn JARVIS sounded relieved.

 

* * *

 

Tony liked it when Clint, Nat, and Thor joined them at the tower. The common spaces filled with friendly chatter and good-natured banter. The gang also drew Steve out of his apartment which was nice to see. Sometimes Tony honestly forgot that he was there, he was so quiet, tucked up on his balcony.

He'd come to realize that he liked having Steve around. He was funny in an out-of-nowhere kind of way and seemed genuinely interested in Tony's mad science. He gave off this constant air of "got your back" which was safe and grounding, not just in a team leader, but in a friend too. And Tony hadn't missed the way Steve’s eyes raked over him sometimes, lingering, interested. It was flattering and intriguing and put all kinds of late-night ideas into Tony's head.

For the first time in a long time, tonight was going to be poker night. Tony couldn’t remember the last time they’d had the energy to play cards. Usually, the only way they’d end up at the tower together was because some battle had run long enough that no one had the energy to go home. Those nights were unhealthy snacks and falling asleep in front of a bad movie.

This one was planned, however, and so far, the forces of evil hadn’t made a play at ruining their fun. Tony mixed drinks while the others settled around the table, laughing and joking. It was a wonderful atmosphere and Tony soaked in the warm, family feeling of being surrounded by happy noise.

They played a couple hands and watched as Steve’s pile of chips grew larger and larger, while everyone else’s shrunk. No one was surprised, Steve was astonishingly good at poker.

It swung around to Steve’s turn to deal and he scooped up the deck of cards. Natasha held out a hand to stop him. “Wait, you forgot one.” She reached for the lone card on the side of the table. “Oh no nevermind, it’s the joker.” She turned the card towards Clint with a smile. “Look, it’s you!”

“Har har.” He snatched the card out of her hand and flicked it, eyes still fixed on Nat. It spun across the room and slotted itself perfectly between two empty beer bottles on the bar across the room.

“Holy shit!” Bruce’s jaw dropped. “Did you mean to do that?! You weren’t even looking.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “I’m a sniper, it’s what I do.”

Nat held out another card. Clint flicked. All eyes followed it as it sailed across the room and landed in the garbage can with a satisfying thunk. Clint took a bow.

“Okay, but that was the six of spades. We actually need that one,” Steve pointed out.

Thor laughed, loud and booming, swinging his elbow to the side, and clipped Tony’s drink, splashing liquid across the table. The whiskey sloshed over the cards Steve had set down while Clint showed off. They all leapt to their feet, Thor apologizing profusely.

“It’s alright dude.” Clint clapped him on the shoulder. “That deck was missing the six of spades anyway.”

They mopped up the spilled alcohol and tossed the rest of the cards. Bruce wanted to watch Clint throw them out one at a time, but Nat shut that down, proclaiming that Clint was the last person in need of a captive audience ego boost.

Clint pulled a new deck of cards out of a drawer and tossed them down. The pile split and spread across the table, slick and new. “I feel good about these.”

Steve laughed and reached for the scattered pile of cards, gathering them up again into a neat stack. Tony rounded the table to grab a refill for his spilled drink and caught a flash of white out of the corner of his eye as Steve shuffled. He stopped, turned, watched.

The fucker was palming cards.

It was beautiful, smooth, easy. There was no way you’d spot it if you didn’t have exactly the right angle, and it was blowing Tony’s mind. Steve spun the deck in his hand, talking easily, everyone’s attention elsewhere, then started deftly dealing half from the top, half from the bottom of the deck.

“I’m out this round,” Tony called, pulling out his phone. “Got a few work emails to write.”

There was a rumble of assent and Tony took his fresh drink and a bowl of nuts to his chair. He held his phone and tipped his chin towards it, but kept his eyes fixed on Steve’s hands. He hid behind his dark glasses, so no one noticed his piercing gaze as he fake-typed on his phone.

It was glorious. Steve handled the cards like they were part of him, flicking them between his fingers and twisting them deftly from the top to the bottom. He finished dealing, stone-still poker face giving nothing away, and checked his hand. No wonder he didn’t look surprised, he’d picked the freaking cards himself.

Tony resisted the urge to clap his hands like a little girl, or an overexcited seal, and laugh out loud. It was so beautifully bizarre and somehow perfectly ironic that Captain America cheated at cards. And so gorgeously too.

Tony kept his mouth shut, however, anteing up for the next hand and playing out the evening’s games with glee. Steve won - of course - not massively, but decidedly. They didn’t play for money, but Tony would have happily paid out to get to experience that masterful show.

Even better, Steve didn’t seem to have noticed that Tony had seen him, and Tony was sure no one else at the table had caught on. There was no way any of them would have kept their mouth shut if they’d seen it; they were all way too competitive to let cheating slide.

But Tony hoarded the knowledge, oddly pleased to have a piece of Steve that no one else did. He tucked it in his mental pocket, gleeful, and every time he thought the oxygen must be getting thin atop Steve’s high horse, he’d whisper, “that asshole cheats at cards,” to himself and smile.


	2. Chapter 2

“Captain?” JARVIS’ voice was sharp, and Steve immediately snapped into Captain America mode. He hopped out of bed and brushed his hand over his face, shoving away the last remnants of sleep.

“What is it?” He was already reaching for his uniform and shield as he spoke.

“There’s been an incident in Queens. The NYPD has requested the Avengers’ assistance.”

Steve slid into his uniform with practiced ease, snapping his shield onto his back. “Alright, call it, JARVIS. I’m headed for the quinjet.”

He shucked the last of Steve in exchange for Cap, just in time. JARVIS sounded the alarms through the building that would summon the whole team. The others had stayed over after their poker game so for the first time in a while, the whole team could arrive as one.

They piled into the jet, Tony joining them instead of flying alongside, already in the armour with the faceplate up. They blasted off for Queens. SHIELD’s reports flowed in but with the quinjet’s speed they made it to the incident zone before they could read any of them.

As one, they crowded to the front of the jet and peered out of the window at the scene below.

“They’re… frogs,” Clint hissed out between clenched teeth.

Tony tipped his head to the side. “Are they?”

“They’re frog-like,” Steve said, with more confidence than he felt. They were definitely frog-shaped… kind of. And green… mostly. And gooey. “Are frogs normally that gooey?"

“I hate frogs,” Clint moaned. “Why frogs? I signed up for international intrigue and the occasional alien, not giant, extra-gooey frogs.”

“How can you hate frogs?” Bruce asked. “They’re just frogs.” Tony made a gesture towards the window. “Yes, ok, _those_ are not ‘just frogs’ but Clint hates all frogs. Regular frogs are fine.”

“You just like them because they’re green,” Clint snapped.

Tony clapped his hands together. “Maybe if you hulk-out they’ll think you’re their giant froggy leader and do as you say!”

Bruce glared at Tony and opened his mouth but Steve held up a hand and he snapped it shut again. “Frogs or no, normal operating procedure - recon, contain, subdue. Hawkeye and Thor are on perimeter control. Bruce in the jet unless we call Code, uh, _Green_. Iron Man, Widow, and I will push in and see if they can be reasoned with. If not, we take them out.”

Tony shot him a salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

Clint started humming the Spongebob Squarepants theme under his breath and Steve rolled his eyes. Unfortunately, that was a reference he got now.

They burst out of the jet and took their positions with practiced ease. The frogs, as it turned out, could not be reasoned with. They were mindless machines of destruction, tearing through three square city blocks and leaving them covered with a sticky trail of goop.

Fighting them was hard. They were as tall as a human, extremely aggressive, and numerous. Luckily, they were weak, and fell quickly, so the challenge was to get ahead of their sheer numbers and round them up somewhere contained.

Thor dumped Clint on a perch, high up on an apartment building, then circled the block with Tony, herding them into the centre. Steve and Nat pushed in at street level, forcing them away from civilians and into range of Clint’s bow.

It was exhausting work. The sticky excretion was tiring to walk through and kept threatening to rip the shield out of his arms. And the more frogs he felled, the stickier he became.

Clint’s comm clicked on. “Um.”

“Hawkeye? Status,” Steve commanded.

“I - no. I’m good. But.” There was a pause.

“Hawkeye?” Nat echoed.

“Some of them are up here - I - _fuck._ I’m okay they’re just. Ergh, no, no shitshitshit.”

Steve knew that tone of voice. He turned sharply, looking up just in time to see a dark shape fling itself off the roof. He opened his mouth to yell for air support, but Tony was already there. Red and gold streaked across the sky and collided with Clint. His volley of arrows never lessened, taking down frog after frog as the two spun around the building.

“We talked about this,” Nat hissed out between clenched teeth.

 _“ **F** **rogs** ," _was Clint’s only reply.

Steve fell back into the familiar rhythm of battle and it became clear quickly that they were going to win. The army of amphibians had been pressed into a dense cluster in the centre of a long block. Clint and Tony pushed in from one side, Nat and Steve from the other, and Thor landed right in the centre, breaking their ranks, preventing them from forming a wall of goop.

Steve hauled himself through the ever-growing river of sticky sludge and slammed his shield into the face of an angrily advancing beast. It snapped at him, charging relentlessly no matter how many times he shoved it back. The goop was slowing Steve’s movements, dragging on his tired muscles. His breath started coming short and sharp, and his body released a flood of panicky adrenaline as he realized he was stuck.

The frog attacked again, and he held the shield over his head, curling in on himself with the weight of the frog’s barrage which only served to sink him deeper in the muck.

He tried to call to his team for help but a harsh jolt from the frog got him under the shield, in his ribs, and knocked the air out of his lungs. The frog took its advantage and climbed on top of him, not able to get past the shield to his face, but crushing him with its weight, locking him into the sticky goo. Heart pounding, Steve struggled uselessly. If he could push the frog off far enough to get a proper breath he could call out, but it wouldn't give.

And then it was gone.

Something clamped around his bicep and he tried to struggle against it automatically, but it was too strong. It tugged, then pulled hard and he flew up out of the rising muck and into the air. The familiar roar of repulsors drowned out the noise of battle. Tony. Tony had him.

Steve shook his head and pulled air back into his achy lungs as Tony set him back upright, a few feet away. “Thanks,” he gasped out.

“You alright?”

“Fine.”

“Alright.” Tony clapped him on the back once, then flew back into the fray. Steve took a moment to right himself, get his strength back, then joined him, more careful this time not to let the sludge overwhelm him. 

 

* * *

 

After nearly half an hour more of battle, the team finally overpowered the frog army and were able to hand things off to SHIELD for cleanup.

Tony took one more loop around the block to double check things as the quinjet took off for the tower, then he zipped after it. He flew low and slow, keeping an eye on the city streets, making sure nothing else sprung up.

By the time he hit the landing pad and let the bots divest him of the armour, the other Avengers were already inside, making for their own showers and changes of clothes. All except Steve who sat in the jet, bent over one of the computer screens.

“What’s up, Cap?” Tony called out.

Steve looked up, clearly startled, and there was a painful pinching around his eyes. “I was just reviewing the footage from today. Figuring out what went wrong.”

“Wrong? I thought we handled it pretty well.”

Steve pushed himself out of the seat and fell into step with Tony as they made their way into the tower.

“There was too much on you today. You caught Clint, and -” there was the briefest of pauses, but Tony caught it  “- saved me.”

“I’m sure you had it, Cap. I was just helping out.”

“I really didn’t.”

There was something cold and a little shaken in Steve’s voice and it made Tony trip over his own feet as he stared, trying to read Steve’s blank expression. “You alright?”

“Yeah. Fine. I think we need to go over strategy though.”

“Cool. Hit me.”

Steve started talking team orientation and structure and Tony followed after him, only realizing that they’d ended up in Steve’s apartment after several minutes of intense discussion. He blinked around at the relatively unfamiliar surroundings then shuffled into the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

The armour had protected Tony completely from the frog’s disgusting onslaught, but Steve had not been so lucky. He dumped the shield in the hall, by the door and disappeared into the bedroom. He kept on talking while Tony sipped his water, leaning against the counter.

“We should split the team into pairs - always have eyes on your buddy.” Steve’s voice wafted in from the bedroom. Tony made a noise of agreement. Steve was quiet for a moment then appeared in just a t-shirt and sweatpants, rubbing an increasingly green-stained towel on his hair rather ineffectively. “Can the comms take any bio readings?”

Tony’s eyebrow shot up. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, they’re in our ears, right? Is there a way for them to take our pulse, or let the others know if one of us falls unconscious or something?”

Tony’s brain flicked into engineering mode as he worked through his options. Steve watched him patiently, apparently recognizing that look as *Thinking...Please Hold*.

“Yes… yeah.... I’d have to modify, maybe work some sensors into our uniforms, but it shouldn’t be too hard. We can talk about how you’d want that information. JARVIS is already dialed in to my comm and he can see all my readings. We could put sensors on all of us and have them send data back to him and then, you know, vocal codes to gather info and, uh, alerts on life-threatening drops in stats. Or some kind of display... That kind of thing?”

Steve let out an audible breath. “Yes, exactly.”

“It’s a good idea, Cap.” Tony nodded. He watched the other man as he sipped his water. Steve’s eyes drifted down to the carpet and stayed there. His shoulders drooped and his fingers twitched against his thighs. Tony set his glass down on the counter, and Steve jumped a little at the sound, super-soldier strength clearly keeping him from recoiling further. Steve had stripped off more than his uniform, he’d stripped off his whole armour, and the weight of the battle was clearly hitting him full force. Tony knew that feeling. Sometimes the bots would take away the last piece of Iron Man and he would suddenly, horrifically, be all Tony - exposed and vulnerable and weak.

Steve wasn’t physically weak out of his armour, but Tony was beginning to suspect he was struggling with more in his head than he let on. Tony had the urge to help, to say the right thing. But he never said the right thing so he opted for a graceless exit instead. “I’d better get started on the mods then. Anything else to add to the list?”

Steve sighed and lifted his gaze again. “Your list is long enough already.”

Tony cocked his head, confused. “It’s fine. I want to. Anything I can do to help. They’re good ideas, Cap.” He didn’t miss Steve’s tiny flinch at the nickname.

“That’s all, thanks.”

Tony shot him a salute and beat a hasty retreat.

 

* * *

 

A couple weeks later, Steve and the team found themselves gathered again, in a meeting room at SHIELD headquarters. They had monthly meetings with Fury, Hill and the WSC, which were always long, boring, and rage-inducing.

At least, most of the team found themselves gathered; Tony had yet to arrive. He’d managed to find a way to excuse himself from the last three but Fury had finally put his foot down. Tony had caved and promised he’d show, but it was already ten minutes past the hour and he was nowhere to be seen.

The door clicked open and none other than the man in question swanned in. He was holding two coffee cups and had his bluetooth headset in.

“Sorry, I’m late. I was really enjoying not being here,” Tony announced, collapsing into a chair near the end of the table.

Steve shrugged. “It’s actually fine. Fury and Hill got held up. Some kind of incident. They don’t need us, but they’re running late.”

“We decided to wait,” Nat added. “Can’t be that long.”

Everyone else had their phones out, clicking through news sites, or texting with friends to kill the time, but Steve enjoyed the opportunity to sit still, silent, for a while and not think. His eyes found Tony, wondering which technological distraction he’d settle on.

None seemed to be the surprising answer. Tony’s brow was furrowed, mouth twisted unhappily, and Steve wondered if he was hearing something he didn’t like through the headset. But then he pulled it out of his ear and tossed it aside, with no change in his expression. He focused on the coffee for a while, tipping one cup high to sip out the last drops then tossing it into the trash and starting in on the next one.

Steve wondered how late he’d been up the night before, working on Avengers tech. How hurt would Tony be if he suggested bringing in some engineering help? Was that even something they could do? Surely there was no one as capable of designing it as Tony, but maybe some help implementing?

Steve’s eyes stayed fixed on Tony, worrying now.

Tony shifted uneasily in his seat, his eyes darting around the room, even checking the corners of the ceiling and flicking towards the door several times. He rapped his fingers on his coffee cup, coughed, squirmed.

Another ten minutes passed with no sign of SHIELD and Tony seemed increasingly stressed as time went on. He finished his coffee and shredded the cup into tiny pieces. The table rocked slightly from his jiggling leg until Clint shot him an irritated look. Tony couldn’t seem to focus on his phone, like the others. He picked it up and turned it over and over in his hands without swiping the screen open.

Steve looked around the room, trying to figure out what might be bothering Tony so much, not wanting to ask in front of the gang and draw attention to him. The room was still, mostly empty save for a long conference table and several chairs. There were no cameras or windows or anything Steve could think might be upsetting. He sat still, ears straining, but could find no unpleasant hum or ring.

It was nice, being here, being with the team without a lot of fluttering about and yelling at one another. The yelling would come later, when Fury came back. But Tony was bothered now. It wasn’t caffeine, Steve knew what Tony looked like on too much caffeine and it was hyper, manic, chipper, destructive, not twitchy, nervous, panicky.

After five more minutes of nothing, Tony pushed his chair back, curling his arms into a ring on the table with his phone in the centre, and nestled his head, facedown, over top. His body finally stilled, his fretful twitchy stopped, and Steve breathed a sigh of relief.

Finally, twenty minutes later, Fury and Hill appeared, looking worn out and harassed, but ready to start the meeting, to everyone’s intense relief.

When Hill shut the door behind her with an audible click, Tony lifted his head from his arms. Steve heard the faintest chime of music before Tony poked his phone a few times, silencing it. Hill charged into the meeting right away, wasting no time after the long wait. Steve worried but every time he shot a look to Tony, the other man was calm and still, leaned back in his chair, exuding his usual nonchalant cockiness.

 

* * *

 

You’ve been to one rich, asshole, ego-stroking party, you’ve been to them all. Tony leaned against the appetizer table and gazed around the room with little interest. Same pricey snacks, same grand staircases, same mooching dicks hitting him up for investment, as if he could give a shit.

What he really wanted to invest in was an actual Life-Model Decoy system that would let him stay home, instead of going to these events. If he didn’t have so much Avengers stuff on the table, he’d honestly be working on that.

The rest of the team was spread out around the room. Clint had a group of teens around him - most likely dragged here by obnoxiously wealthy parents who wanted to give them a taste of what life would be like when they “stepped up.” Tony knew that feeling. The kids were slack-jawed and wide-eyed as Clint waved his arms around, clearly telling some thoroughly engaging story. Probably also wildly inappropriate for the setting.

Tony picked up a napkin and filled it with his favourite appetizers in case they moved quickly. He sipped his drink and found his next teammate.

Nat had been cornered by a nervous woman in a slinky, blue dress who seemed to have latched onto Nat’s confidence as a shield against a broody, young man. Tony thought he had come in with the woman, but she was now clearly avoiding him at all costs. Nat was graciously allowing the woman to hide under her wing, chatting with her and shooting Black Widow looks at the man whenever he seemed to be considering coming closer.

Thor had gathered a bit of a crowd too, but Tony couldn’t tell what they were talking about. Bruce had found a fellow scientist and they were head to head, engrossed in chatting, in a quiet corner.

Steve was by the bar -

Tony’s train of thought was dramatically derailed by a loud crack and a burst of light. Great, fireworks. And he thought it wasn’t possible to make this party any more rich-asshole-cliche.

He scanned the bar, wanting to finish his team catalogue, but Steve was gone. Tony pushed away from the table and stepped out into the room, catching sight of a familiar ankle in a black suit as it disappeared around a corner, down the hall.

He followed the ankle, curious and a little worried. This hall led to nowhere, just another long hallway along the back of mansion, facing the private rose garden. If Steve was looking for the bathroom, or to go out and see the fireworks, he was going the wrong way.

But when he rounded the corner, he realized Steve had found exactly what he was looking for. He sat on the floor at the end of the hall, managing a surprisingly small shape in the vast, empty hallway. Steve had his back to the wall and his gaze fixed blankly out the floor-to-ceiling windows towards the dense rose bushes outside.

Tony made his way down the hall until he stood beside him. The roar of the party was muffled here. Steve didn’t say anything but shifted slightly, in a way that felt like an invitation, so Tony slid down the wall beside Steve until they sat together on the floor, shoulder to shoulder.

“Canape?” Tony offered. He unfolded the napkin and held it out. Steve eyed the contents covetously.

“What are they?” he asked.

“I have no idea, but they taste like the unholy lovechild of butter pastry and melting brie, so I’m going to go with ‘fattening’ and leave it at that.”

Steve reached out and plucked one of the pastry bundles from the napkin, then popped it into his mouth. His eyes widened.

“I know right?” Tony dropped the napkin in Steve’s lap.”You’d better take the rest, I’ve already had three days worth of calories in liquid form tonight, I don’t need any more or I’ll have to rebuild my Iron Man armour in an entirely new shape.”

Steve shot him a disapproving look, the effect somewhat dampened by chipmunk cheeks full of cheese and the dusting of flakey pastry across his lips.

Tony waved a hand dismissively. “It’s alright, I’m kidding. Kind of. I’m not that drunk. Mostly. Ask me to calculate the square root of 9,456,132.”

Steve rolled his eyes and shoved the last of the canapes in his mouth. He wiped his fingers on the napkin and balled it up between his hands. Another festive explosion rang out from down the hall, and Steve flinched almost imperceptibly.

Tony sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I could still do that drunk.” Steve’s little snort of amusement felt like a gold medal.

The noise continued to crackle outside and Steve’s jaw got progressively tighter. He glared down at the napkin in his lap and Tony wasn’t sure if he was mad at it for being empty, or blaming it for his current discomfort.

“Rhodey doesn’t like fireworks either,” Tony said lightly, eyes fixed on his drink instead of Steve. He felt Steve shift a little beside him. Tony risked a glance up and Steve was looking away, down the hall, but Tony could see a slight ease to his posture. The tension that had been wound through his arms and up into his shoulders was still there, but it had given way the tiniest amount, and that felt like a win too.

Steve must have sensed Tony’s gaze on him because he turned back, caught Tony’s eye.

Tony gave him a goofy smile and drained the rest of his glass. “It’s 3,075, by the way.”

Steve grinned.

 

* * *

 

Steve ran the tip of his pencil along the page in a long pointless arc, then sighed. That was one downside to his future life. In his youth he’d never suffered from lack of inspiration, in fact, at times it felt like one lifetime would never be enough to get his many visions down on paper. But art supplies had been expensive and there had been whole stretches when he didn’t have paper or pencils at all.

But now. Now he had a whole cupboard of everything an artist could need and several things he had no intention of ever using. He never wanted for pencils or paints, and whenever a sketchbook filled, JARVIS would have three more delivered.

But all he could draw now were things from real life. His imagination was… risky. He couldn’t take the reins off and let his hand flow smoothly across the page for fear of letting his demons loose onto paper. So he drew the skyline, Avengers Tower, his apartment. He drew people - some from memory, some from pictures, and, once in a while, his teammates. And nothing more.

Today that prospect seemed boring, however. Nothing of interest was spread out on the streets of Manhattan below, and he couldn’t be bothered to fetch an object from inside - he’d sketched all of his belongings several times over already, anyway.

He wanted a live subject. His pencil danced across the page again, only a small portion of his attention following it along. The edge of a round shoulder, a lean yet muscular arm…

“Hey, JARVIS?”

“How can I be of assistance, Captain?”

“What is - Is Tony busy?”

“Mr. Stark is currently in his room, reading. Would you like me to connect you to him?”

Steve thought about it for a moment. “Yes, please.”

A second later there was a soft click to let him know the line was open. “Hey, Cap, what’s up?’

“Hey, Tony. I was just - I was wondering. What are you up to?”

Tony was quiet for a second before answering. “I’m becoming an expert in molecular aerodynamics.”

“Oh, uh, that’s… fun. Reading, right? You want to join me on the balcony? I’m kind of..” Lonely was not a word he wanted to use. “... bored.”

“Sure. But by the time I get there I might have already mastered all of current human knowledge.”

“I’m sure you have something else lined up.”

“Well, I am thinking about taking up knitting.”

“Then bring your wool and come up here. I want to draw you.” It just tumbled out and Steve stopped himself from slapping his hand over his mouth, even though Tony couldn’t see him.

“That’s not weird at all!” Tony exclaimed cheerfully, and Steve laughed, relieved that Tony hadn’t been disturbed by the admission. “On my way.”

A few minutes later, the door wooshed open and Tony sauntered out onto the balcony. He was holding his tablet and a mug of coffee so enormous it verged on bowl territory. His hair was flat on one side and wild on the other and he wore dark sunglasses, thin sweatpants and a white wife-beater that looked like it had seen better days. The arc reactor glowed brightly through the fabric of his shirt.

“Heya, Cap.” He yawned and crumpled into the lounge chair on Steve’s left, clattering his mug-bowl against the wooden arm of the chair and shuffling around audibly until he got seated.

“Hey,” Steve, replied, eyeing his ragged appearance. “Rough night?”

Tony arched an eyebrow from under the sunglasses. “Are you suggesting I look anything less than amazing this morning?”

“I would never.” Steve fought the smile that threatened the corner of his lips. He liked these playful moments between them. It felt a little like Tony was letting down his guard, letting something rough and grating that he usually held out in front of him like a shield fall away, however briefly.

Tony opened the cover on his tablet, but his eyes were still on Steve. He could feel them burning through the tinted glass, and he squirmed under the attention.

“So, what’s this about wanting to draw me?” Tony asked lightly, a slight undercurrent of _something_ cutting through.

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve drawn everything else in this tower. I’m just looking for some more dynamic subject matter and Bruce doesn’t like being watched.”

“What makes you think I like being watched?” Tony’s voice turned light and playful, the careful current having swept away.

“You let the kids at the hospital cover your armour from head to toe in Hello Kitty stickers and then went straight to a battle with 40 doombots in Central Park. You love being watched.”

“Do you know how long it takes to peel three hundred cat stickers off the suit? I didn’t have time!”

“I know for a fact, that was your backup armour, and you had the suitcase in the car with Happy. The suitcase suit that _doesn’t_ have that issue with banking left.” Steve pointed the end of his pencil at him accusingly. “You wore the Hello Kitty armour on purpose.”

Tony finally broke into a grin, chuckling into his coffee tankard. “Alright, you got me there, Cap. I don’t mind a little attention. Draw away. But make sure you get my good side.”

“Aren’t they all good sides?” Steve quipped, then hid his blush by ducking his head to flip through his sketchbook to a blank page.

“I’m flattered you noticed, Steven, they are indeed.” Tony mock-preened a little then settled down into the chair, chin tipping towards his tablet.

Instead of stretching out on the lounger, Tony sat sideways, both legs hooked over one of the chair’s arms, his back propped against the other. He tipped a little to the side, leaning the side of his head against the backrest.

It was a good pose, all long legs and interesting lines, and Steve put pencil to paper right away. Settling into a deep focus in the cozy quiet of his balcony. Tony didn’t seem bothered by Steve’s intense stare; his gaze stayed fixed on his tablet.

It wasn’t long, however, before Tony started to fidget.

It started as little shifts in his seat, getting more and more frequent. Then he started glancing away from his tablet, looking out at the sky. He muttered to himself a few times, but even Steve’s super-powered hearing couldn’t catch the words.

Steve looked up from his sketch frequently, working his way up from Tony’s feet to his shoulders, and it seemed like every time he glanced Tony’s way, the other man had squirmed himself into a new angle. It wasn’t a problem for the drawing, Steve was good at finding the averages of a position, but it was making him feel squirmy himself, wondering what was bothering Tony.

“It’s so quiet out here,” Tony said, finally loud enough for Steve to hear.

Steve smiled at him. “Yeah, that’s what I like about it.”

Tony stared at him for a moment then his eyes dropped to his tablet. He rapped out a jarring beat with his fingers on the arm of his chair. It only lasted a few minutes, however, before Tony sprung to his feet. “Sorry, I gotta -” And he walked out.

Steve was left stunned and feeling uncomfortably put out by Tony’s rapid departure. He stared blankly at Tony’s abandoned chair for a while, trying to figure out what he’d done. Or, if there was something wrong with Tony, why hadn’t he said something?

His eyes fell to the sketchbook in his hands. He’d made it all the way up Tony’s body before he’d walked out. On paper, Tony’s feet were kicked out over the arm, body curled into the back of the chair, his hands held the tablet in his lap, but Steve hadn’t made it to his face. There was a blank, sketchy circle where he planned to fill it in, and now the empty face stared back at him, unfocused, shapeless.

Steve was starting to think that was as much as he knew about Tony anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony wasn’t hiding.

Okay, he was maybe hiding a little bit, but he was working too, so at most it was half-hiding.

He’d run out of food in the workshop, though. So his engineering binge - that really could not be classified as any more than quarter-hiding - would have to come to an end soon. Tony could subsist on coffee and power bars for a long time, but coffee alone could only get him so far. Even the coffee was probably running low; he was too afraid to check.

So he had to come up for air, and food, and that meant common rooms because the last time he’d been in the penthouse was so long ago that anything in his fridge had probably formed its own dystopian society by now.

But common space meant maybe running into Steve, who liked to hang out there.

Not that he was hiding, or anything.

Tony tossed down his tools with a satisfying clang and stared at the dissected Widow’s Bites spread around him in pieces. They were almost there, almost done; he deserved a break. He’d solved at least 80% of the issues with the last model and reduced the re-charge time significantly. Only a couple more tweaks and they’d be ready to go. He hauled himself up to his feet with a pained groan.

Tony rounded the corner with a shuddering yawn, scratching his fingers through his hair. He tried to remember the last time he’d slept. Probably the night after that party, or maybe the night before that… he stepped through the doorway and into the kitchen.

And walked right into Steve.

God, he was so bad at this hiding thing.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Steve, he actually really, really did. What he didn’t want was to have to come up with words to say to Steve. He’d practiced this conversation a couple of times on his own and it had never gone quite right. And this time would be even worse because he didn’t know Steve’s lines.

He should probably explain his bolting the other day. He could tell it had upset Steve, but he wasn’t sure how to word it without it getting weird and full of feelings. He also needed to show Steve that it wasn’t about him - he wanted to spend time with him - he was just kinda freaked out by the pressing, weighty, breathless silence of the balcony.

So Tony swallowed hard and threw out his olive branch before Steve had a chance to derail his train of thought by speaking, or moving, or breathing, or really existing in any sort of way.

“Steve! Hey, guess what? I finally got all those gears off the couch in the workshop, you know, if you ever wanted to, um, sit, sketch, whatever. You said you were bored of the stuff in your apartment. I’ve got some. Stuff, that is. Cool stuff. If you want. To draw. It. Nevermind.”

A job well done. Half of those were even almost words. All in all, Tony would rate the experience C- and would be retiring to his workshop, alone, for the rest of forever.

But Steve brightened and jerked his hand in Tony’s direction when he tried to step away. The movement halted Tony’s escape. “That’s - that’s actually a really good idea.” Steve smiled. “Thanks. That would be amazing. I’d love to draw your bots, if they wouldn’t mind.”

“No of course not. They don’t really… mind things. Come down whenever.”

“Thanks.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

What was he - food! Right, he was here for food. Tony turned away from Steve and marched into the kitchen. He grabbed the first thing he could find and started scrolling through his email while he ate.

“Uh, Tony?”

Tony startled up from the screen and found Steve still in the room, leaning against the counter a few feet away. “Yush?” he said around a mouthful of - uh… thing?

“Are you eating an orange?” Steve’s voice was gentle, like he was coaxing a feral cat into a trap.

Tony looked down at the fruit in his hand. “Yes? Is that not normal food?” he tried to say. To be fair, there was something distinctly abnormal happening in his mouth, now that he was thinking about it.

Steve’s forehead crinkled adorably. “Well, yeah, but usually you peel it first...”

“Hmm.” Tony inspected the unpeeled orange. It had a large bite out of it. He chewed. And chewed some more. More chewing. He shot Steve a nervous look.

Steve sighed and plucked the orange out of his hand. “Go back downstairs. I’ll make you something and then bring it down with my sketchbook so I can draw the bots. Good?”

Tony tried to say, _perfect,_ around the mouthful of pith and peel, but it came out as, _“ferfuh,”_ instead. Steve seemed to know what he meant, however, because he smiled indulgently and shooed Tony out of the kitchen.

Tony made his way back down to the workshop. His mouth tasted bitter and dry, but at least he’d had an entire week’s worth of vitamin C in one go. He double checked that the couch really was cleared of gears (it wasn’t) and that there wasn’t anything dubious open on any of his many screens (there was).

It wasn’t long before Steve arrived, awkwardly burdened with two plates, two cups, his sketchbook and a case of pencils. Once they were settled with their food, Tony at his desk and Steve on the couch, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. Steve was focused on his sandwich, his sketchbook untouched next to his hip.

“Hey, Gears-For-Brains, come here,” Tony called. DUM-E trundled across the workshop. “Go look pretty, Cap wants to draw you.”

Steve brightened as DUM-E rolled over next to the couch and adopted what he clearly thought was a coquettish pose. Setting his plate aside immediately, Steve opened his sketchbook, pencil poised. “Thanks, Tony.”

“Sure, whatever. Just don’t, like, tell him he’s a good model or anything. The last thing he needs is an ego boost. It’s tragic really, how cute he thinks he is. Tragic and wrong.”

Steve smirked, then put pencil to paper and Tony watched as he fell into a kind of artist’s trance. Tony wondered if that was what he looked like himself, when he was working.

He should work...

Instead, his eyes keep flicking back over to Steve. He was happily scribbling away, staring at DUM-E for a moment, then dropping his eyes back to his work. DUM-E was definitely preening, there was no other word for it.

Eventually, the call of the soldering iron was too much and Tony pushed up his sleeves and dropped to his knees amongst the pieces of the bites. He signaled JARVIS to turn the music on and took a deep breath, rolling the kinks out of his shoulders as he settled in. It wasn’t long before he was elbow deep in metal and wiring.

Tony got lost in the beauty of design and destruction and by the time he resurfaced for air he was stiff and full of pins and needles. He stretched out his legs and winced as they started to come back to life. He looked over towards the couch, then did a double take. Steve was gone.

Tony startled up to his feet and spun, taking in the whole room as if Steve might be hiding behind the stack of broken hard drives. But no one was here. DUM-E was tucked up on his charger.

“How long was I working, J? Is it tomorrow by accident?”

“You have been working for one hour and fourteen minutes, Sir.”

Okay, not that bad. “And when did Steve leave?”

“Captain Rogers was here for thirty-three minutes and forty-eight seconds.”

Huh. Tony wondered if Steve had tried to get his attention and Tony had been too absorbed to notice. He waved a hand towards one of the screens. “Show me.”

The screen lit up with footage from the workshop. Tony watched as Steve came down with the food, then settled on the couch. He mirrored his own grin on the screen when DUM-E rolled over to Steve, so pleased to have a job.

Steve sketched for a while, with Tony watching from his chair. Then he watched himself stand, stretch out and sink down in front of his work. The Tony on screen snapped his fingers and his music started.

Steve flinched like he’d been shot.

His shoulders came up around his ears as he curled in on himself. A second later he relaxed a little but the tension rippling through his back didn’t fade. Tony fast forwarded, watching intently. Steve’s knuckles stayed white, death-gripped on his pencil, he shifted in his seat, letting out short, sharp breaths, and more than once, when the song changed, he flinched again. At just after half an hour, the Tony on screen reached for a tool balanced on a stack of screw boxes and sent them all crashing to the floor. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but Steve had leapt to his feet, stared at Tony’s back for a moment, then walked out.

Oh.

 

* * *

 

Steve tossed his sketchbook on his bed too hard and it bounced off and landed on the floor. He frowned at it but didn’t bend to pick it up. He’d been enjoying himself, he really had, but Tony’s space was just so _loud._ How was he supposed to concentrate? His music was like relentless nails on a chalkboard.

Steve kicked halfheartedly at the sketchbook and it slid under the bed. He tipped over backwards onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling. Why was he chasing after Tony anyway? Inviting him up to the balcony, making him food, following him down to the workshop, drawing his bots, _drawing him for christ’s sake._

It was too hard handling this up and down, back and forth in their friendship. One minute Tony was making him laugh so hard he couldn’t breathe, and the next he was making everything oppressive and overwhelming.  

That night at the party, though. The fireworks. He hadn’t told anyone about the fireworks thing, but Tony just knew. And he sat with him. And he didn’t make it weird, or awkward. They just ate and talked about other things.

That was what made Tony, Tony, really. The way he worked so hard to protect everyone and then brushed it off like it was nothing. How he noticed things. How he smiled.

Steve sat bolt upright on the bed. He stared, wide-eyed and pale, at his own face in the mirror on the back of the bedroom door. So that was… interesting.

Tony. Huh. Steve was - oh. Feeling things for Tony. And he hadn’t noticed them creeping up on him, but now here they were, very real and quite a lot, actually. It was a lot to take in, maybe too much to take in, that he was falling for the man he’d just run out on because they couldn’t stand to be in each other’s space for more than five minutes.

Steve ran a sweaty palm over his face. What a mess this was. How horrifically unfair, to fall for someone you aren’t compatible with. It would be nice if they were, if they could… make it work somehow. But Tony. Tony probably didn’t want that anyway. He wasn’t that kind of guy. He wouldn’t want someone like Steve, someone slow, quiet, simple. Exclusive…

Steve huffed and sat up, pacing around the room a few times before pulling off his shirt and collapsing back on the bed. Horrible, this was all horrible. It was going to mess with his ability to be a leader, run the team. He was going to end up weird and uncomfortable around Tony, when all he wanted was to spend time with him somewhere that didn’t make his teeth vibrate out of his head.

Eventually, Steve drifted off to sleep, sweaty and uncomfortable, pissed off and frustrated, finally finding a little relaxation in the thrumming white noise JARVIS provided.

The relaxation did not last long.

“Captain Rogers?” JARVIS’ voice was soft, gentle - not an Assemble, but Steve still startled out of bed, heart pounding.

“What?”

“You asked me to inform you, no matter what, if Mr. Stark stayed awake longer than forty-eight hours. He has just passed that now.”

Steve took a swing of water and rubbed his eyes. Tony was up too late. He was working - still working from yesterday when he’d already been working for too long. The last thing Steve wanted to do was go back down into the workshop and face Tony after he’d disappeared yesterday, but the thought of Tony working himself to exhaustion trying to build equipment for the team, for him... it was too much.

Steve pushed himself to his feet, pulling on the t-shirt he’d dropped on the floor earlier, but leaving his feet bare. He padded to the elevator and down to the workshop. Steve braced himself and pushed the door open. He took a deep breath and marched across the room. JARVIS kindly lowered the music which made Tony look up in curiosity.

“Hey, Steve. You’re up early.” Tony was pale - dark, puffy circles giving him a vaguely raccoon-ish look - but his eyes were bright and clear.

“Only because you’re up late.”

“What?” Tony set down the circuit board in his hand.

Steve rubbed his eyes. “JARVIS says you’ve been up for almost forty-nine hours, Tony. It’s time to go to bed.”

Tony leaned back in his chair and tipped his head. “Excuse me? Who died and made you Pepper? You can’t tell me what to do.” He looked almost amused, but Steve was anything but. He sighed and leaned back against the table behind him.

“I’m just trying to look out for you. You’re pushing yourself too hard. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“If you overwork yourself you’re going to start making mistakes. I can’t let that happen.” Steve knew as soon as the words slipped out his mouth that that was the worst thing he could say.

_“‘Let’?”_

“That’s not what I - “

“You know what, _Cap,_ you can come talk to me when I start fucking up in the field, or sleeping through an Assemble, or if Widow’s bites start giving the baddies a lovely back massage instead of three thousand volts straight to the heart. But I’ve been living my life this way for a long time, longer than you’ve been alive - or awake at least - so I don’t really need you coming in here and trying to change me.”

Steve wanted to say _I don’t want to change you,_ but Tony snapped his fingers and the workshop exploded with pounding music. Steve flinched back, clenching his jaw and caught Tony’s lips curling into an angry smirk.

Fine. If Tony didn’t want his help, he could work himself to death. All Steve was trying to do was protect him, support him. And he’d failed spectacularly at that. He might as well go back to his quiet bed and spend another two hours trying _not_ to think about his sudden feelings revelation.

Fat chance.

 

* * *

 

Tony turned to watch Steve’s back whisking out of the workshop. Well, this had royally gone to shit, hadn’t it? Somehow in two days they’d gone from trying to make this friendship thing work, to yelling at each other in the workshop. Where the fuck did Steve get off, bossing him around like that?

The sad thing was that he actually did want to go to bed, but he’d been putting it off for hours now because he was depressingly sober and not at the point of complete exhaustion yet, which usually led to either lying awake in the quiet dark, or falling asleep straight into nightmares. Still, if Steve had been nicer he probably would have given in. But of course Steve had to be an asshole about it. He clearly didn’t see Tony as his teammate, or equal, or friend, he saw him as the angry teenager in the garage playing his music too loud well past his bedtime. Fuck.

And that wasn’t entirely fair either. Because Steve had come down here as just Steve, not Cap, not the man in charge of the Avengers. Tony knew the difference, watched Steve oscillate between the two. And that gave Tony power, because he knew how to get Steve’s back up, how to push him into Cap mode. It was a lot easier to face his leader, an authority figure, and say fuck off, than face the man who had spent half an hour on his couch, drawing DUM-E. So he pushed, as soon as he sensed conflict, he pushed. He could fight with Captain America, but he didn’t want to fight with Steve. It hadn’t worked this time; Steve had just looked at him, lost and exhausted and _sorry._ So he’d done the equivalent of telling Steve to fuck off instead. _Good move, Stark._

Tony sighed and leaned back in his chair. Steve was trying so hard, that much was obvious, but what was he trying to do? Be a friend? Figure Tony out? Control him? If he was honest, it felt like the first - with a healthy dose of ogling thrown in. Ogling which, amusingly, Steve hadn’t seemed to have noticed he was doing. He never blushed and averted his eyes, or smirked flirtily when Tony caught him. He just stared a lot, sometimes smiling.

But that was just sex, or whatever. Tony knew that look, got it a lot. He was hot, who cared? He certainly wasn’t going to charm his way out of this one. Charm was only a bandaid anyway, and he didn’t want to make Steve shut up, or go away, or get in his bed. He wanted Steve to like him, as awkward and high school as that sounded. Dammit, he wanted Steve to respect him.

“Hey, J. Do you think Steve will still respect me in the morning?” he joked, spinning in his chair.

“I am confident that Captain Rogers has nothing but the utmost respect for you, Sir.”

“Yeah, well I programmed you to say that.”

Really, Tony was probably unloveable, or at the very least, extremely difficult to love, but he contributed to the team and kept up with all these superheros and he… he wanted Steve to see that.

Instead of sending him to bed.

He looked down at the worktable in front of him. The bio-reading upgrades to the comms were done. It had been a fun project - he hadn’t done fiddly in a while. Maybe. Maybe if he could show Steve what he was working on, he would understand.

Tony scooped up the comms and the wrist monitors and left the workshop. JARVIS let him know that Steve had gone to the common living room, instead of back to bed, so Tony made his way there. He padded off the elevator, peering into the room, looking for Steve.

He found him. He was slumped down on the couch, his bare feet up on the coffee table, ankles crossed. Tony could see the back of his blonde head, just above the top of the couch. The TV was playing a movie - some old romance Tony didn’t recognize, but the sound was turned off, and, instead, subtitles scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Interesting.

Tony wanted to let him know he was here without startling him - he’d done that enough for one day. He shuffled his feet on the carpet, and cleared his throat. Steve’s head turned, and his eyes peered over the back of the couch then widened in surprise.

“Can I come in?” Tony asked, softly.

“Of course.” Steve sat up, making space. Tony walked around the couch, dumped his stuff on the coffee table and wriggled into the empty seat next to Steve.

They were uncomfortably quiet for a moment. Tony watched the words appear and disappear on the screen, not reading, just watching. He was pretty sure Steve was doing that staring at him thing again, but he didn’t want to look over to find out and potentially end up in an accidental staring contest.

“Sor - “ Steve started, and Tony so completely did not want to go there, that he cut him off abruptly.

“I finished the bio comms.”

Steve snapped his mouth shut, his eyes shifting to the pile of electronics on the table. “Wow. That was fast. That’s - that’s amazing. Thanks.”

Tony picked one up and handed it to Steve, showing him how to wear it, then added the display cuff. He showed Steve how to check on the team members and the information that would be displayed. He put one in his own ear, then set Steve’s cuff to track that one. Steve watched intently as a little green dot appeared next to Tony’s name to show he was within acceptable parameters.

“Wow,” Steve repeated.

“JARVIS spent some time scanning you all to determine your normal resting and active stats. He can judge best what’s safe so he’ll give you an alert if something goes wrong.” Tony held his breath until his lungs begged for air and his heartbeat pounded loudly in his ears. Steve smiled when the dot turned yellow and the cuff vibrated, then he nudged Tony in the ribs to force the breath out again. Tony chuckled and started breathing again. The dot turned green.

“J can control the cuffs entirely so they have a lot of power. Really, they can do almost anything he can do - it was easier than programming something special. There are some limitations, but you can even do things like check power levels in Widow’s suit, see how many arrows Hawkeye has left, see my HUD - well at least the safe for work parts of my HUD - that kind of thing. All you have to do is ask him.”

Steve played with the cuff for a while, asking JARVIS for more detailed stats. He smiled when Tony’s heart and breathing rates appeared in detail on the cuff’s screen. Tony held his breath again so Steve could watch them change.

“I tried to modify the cuffs themselves to fit each of us without getting in the way,” he said around a finally exhaled breath. “I mean, mine’s on the HUD, but for the rest of you.”

“This is fantastic.” Steve smiled again, then his attention was caught by the movie and the conversation died away.

Intense silence settled around them again, and Tony started to squirm. Steve’s eyes flickered to the cuff where Tony’s heart rate was rapidly climbing, then up to his face. “Thanks, this is amazing. We’ll go over it at the next team meeting and you can show us all how to use it.”

There was a gentle dismissal there, an open door for Tony to say, “Awesome,” and leave. But he didn’t want to leave. Steve was sitting close enough that he could feel his body heat, and the room was dim and cozy. The movie looked kind of interesting, if a bit sappy. And he wanted to try, dammit.

“Do you mind if I - ?” He made a vague gesture towards the TV, and Steve’s forehead creased. His mouth dipped to a frown, and Tony tensed. Steve didn’t want him to stay.

But Steve started looking around him, perplexed. “Sure, I’ll just - I know I had the remote somewhere, I can turn on the sound, for you.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you use the remote, Steve. You can just ask JARVIS. He can control everything.” Steve sighed, but stopped looking. “But don’t - don’t turn it on for me. You like the quiet,” he added carefully, testing the waters.

Steve stilled, then nodded. “I do.” He took an audible breath in, then let it out. “But you don’t.”

“Okay so -” Tony looked around. If only he had something - “Well, I’m an idiot.” He laughed and Steve raised a curious eyebrow.

Tony held up the comms. “JARVIS, sound please.” He tucked an extra comm in his other ear, and they filled with the sound from the TV, the voices he could hear matching up perfectly with the words below.

Steve grinned, then flopped back down on the sofa, his leg mere inches from Tony’s.

 

* * *

 

Once again, Steve found himself heading down in the elevator, steeling himself for whatever he was going to face in the workshop. It had been nice, last night, watching the movie with Tony. Peaceful. Tony laughed a lot and had endless commentary for the movie, which, in theory, Steve would have assumed he would find annoying, but in practice, he actually found it rather endearing.

But Tony hadn’t let him apologize last night, and he really felt like he should. The elevator doors slid open and Steve could see, at the end of the hall, the long glass wall of Tony’s workshop. He could feel the pounding of the bassline through his feet.

As he approached the door, Tony came into view. His back was to Steve, on his feet in front of the Iron Man armour. Steve couldn’t tell which song was playing, but Tony was evidently enjoying it a lot. His hips swayed back and forth as he worked, occasionally pausing to play air guitar on his drill.

Steve grinned, watching him half-dance, half work. It all came flooding back full force, all the reasons he was feeling more than friendly towards Tony. And he wanted to tell him too - a thought that blindsided him. He wanted to tell him how he felt.

But not now. Maybe in a few decades. If an opportunity presented itself.

Steve shook himself free from his thoughts: for now, he had a mission, and that was to tell Tony he was sorry. He marched forward and pushed open the door. The second he crossed the threshold, the music cut out - that was new - and Tony spun around, then waved.

“One sec.” He turned back to the armour in front of him and jammed the drill in, seemingly at random.

Steve pulled a chair up near Tony’s desk, but well out of the blast radius and waited. Tony banged around for a few minutes then set the drill down and smiled at what he had accomplished. As far as Steve could tell, he’d just punched a bunch of random holes in what was almost certainly a very important part of the backplate, but Tony was pleased so Steve had to assume that was what he wanted.

Tony turned to him, and Steve chuckled. “You know, I don’t understand what you do down here at all.”

Tony considered him for a moment. “Do you want to?”

Tony looked almost… nervous, which was such an un-Tony thing to be that Steve was momentarily taken aback. When he recovered, Steve nodded. Then kept nodding. He suspected he was currently doing a good impression of the bobblehead toys that Clint had covered the quinjet cockpit with, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

Tony crossed the few feet between them and pressed a single finger to Steve’s forehead, stilling him. His lips quirked into a smile. “Okay.”

Tony gestured and the air around Steve filled with holoscreens with blueprints and designs for Black Widow’s bites. And Tony began to explain.

Watching Tony in his element was pretty stunning. Steve knew Tony was the smartest man he’d ever met, even smarter than Howard, but Tony was so good at hiding that behind sass and snark that to see him let go was amazing. And boy did he let go. He bounced around, holding up pieces of electronics and making Steve inspect them closely, then connecting them to the specs on the holoscreens. He explained everything and he was so good at it that Steve even found himself understanding a solid part of it.

Still, it was all _so much._ How could one man tackle all this, ten times over, without burning out?

Tony finally appeared to run out steam, collapsing in a chair next to a pile of what Steve could only assume was every can of compressed air in the entire state of New York. Steve sat for a long while, absorbing, before he finally spoke. “It’s incredible, Tony, it really is. I just - “

Tony raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“I wish you wouldn’t push yourself so hard, is all. I know I didn’t say it very nicely the other night - I’m sorry, I really am - but I see you staying up all night and barely eating and… drinking. A lot. And I worry. Not because I think you’re going to make a mistake and endanger the team, I know you won’t, that wasn’t fair to say. I worry you’re hurting yourself, that you’re suffering. And when I ask you to do more, and you work even harder… I - I feel - “

Tony pushed himself to his feet and stepped forward, into Steve’s space. Whatever other words he’d been planning to say fell out of his head. “Steve. This is the first time in my whole life that I’ve spent my time doing anything of value. I don’t stay up building because the Avengers are working me too hard - I’ve always stayed up building, since I was a kid. Granted, it’s gotten a bit worse in recent years - I used to just think sleep was a waste of time, now it’s a waste of time that comes with handy dandy horrors attached, but whatever. Either way, this is how I live. When I was a kid, I was building whatever ridiculous shit I could come up with, at MIT I was building AIs and robots that think they’re cute. And then, then I took over SI and for years I was building things designed to kill people. Things that were then handed over to the wrong people, used against my friends, against me.

“But now. Now I get to build things to protect us, protect my friends, my - my family. You gave me that.” Tony poked him gently in the chest. “So thanks. And stop apologizing. Being Avengers R&D isn’t an obligation or a burden. It’s a calling.”

Steve opened and closed his mouth a few times. That was astonishingly open and honest for Tony. “Oh,” was all he seemed able to say for a moment. “You have nightmares?” for some inexplicable reason, came out of his mouth next.

“Uh, yeah. I mean, wormhole into space, nearly dying etcetera etcetera. Kinda inevitable, don’t you think?”

“Of course. I wasn’t - I mean, I have them too sometimes. If that’s why you don’t want to go to bed though...”

Tony smirked. “You’re still trying to fix me, aren’t you Steve?”

Steve’s cheeks heated, and he sighed. “Yeah, maybe a little.”

“Well, how’s this for a deal? I’ll try to go to bed ‘a little’ more often, if you promise to only try to fix me ‘a little.’”

Steve was no expert, but he was pretty sure Tony was flirting. He was still standing absurdly close and he’d dropped his voice low and leaned in a little. Suddenly ‘going to bed’ had taken on a whole new meaning. If he weren’t completely out of his depth here, he’d try to flirt back. “That sounds fair. I - “

“Excuse me, Captain, but you have a conference call scheduled for twenty minutes from now,” JARVIS cut in.

Steve startled up, pulling away from the screen. “What?” He looked at his watch. “Oh my god, we’ve been talking for two hours. I’m going to be late.” He scrambled to his feet. “Sorry, Tony. But this - this was fun - good. Thanks.”

“Yeah, anytime, Ca- Steve.” Tony met his eyes. “You’re welcome down here, you know. Whenever.”

Steve left the workshop, this time, with a smile on his face.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve clearly took the invitation to heart because he showed up in the workshop the next day. And the next. And the next. And he listened, rapt, while Tony rambled on about his work, watching him spew nonsense and genuinely caring about it. It was doing _things_ to Tony. Things he didn’t want to think about too closely.

Then it was two days before Tony saw him again. Steve had a meeting at SHIELD the first day, and Tony ended up spending the next with Rhodey. Back at home the day after, he was opening his mouth to ask JARVIS to let Steve know he was home, if he wanted to come hang out, when he had a better idea.

“J, where is Steve now?”

“Captain Rogers is on the balcony, drawing, Sir.”

Perfect. Tony grabbed a few things off his desk and headed straight for the elevators. Steve looked startled for a moment, before smiling widely, when Tony appeared beside him. “Mind if I hang out for a bit?” Tony asked.

“Course not,” Steve replied. “As long as you don’t mind if I finish my drawing of you.” He held up his sketchbook.

“Can’t get enough of my good sides, can you, Rogers?”

Steve mumbled something to himself that Tony didn’t catch, rolling his eyes affectionately. Tony pulled the other lounge chair into approximately the same position it had been last time and collapsed into it, tossing his feet over the arm, and curling in towards the back.

He listened to Steve’s pencil scratch along the paper for a moment, then he pulled his headphones over his ears and everything from outside cut off. He pulled out his phone and with a few taps had blaring music piping into the headphones, filling the balcony with comforting surround sound. When he looked up, Steve was happily sketching away, and when he went back to his circuit designs, he was safe in his bubble of overwhelming noise.

It was awesome.

Unfortunately, awesome didn’t last long. After about forty-five minutes of comfortable companionship, movement caught his eye as Steve leapt to his feet. A second later, his music cut out and JARVIS’ voice cut in. “We have an Assemble, Sir.”

Tony shot up, bumping into Steve as they both flew for the door. They parted at the elevator, Tony heading for the quinjet hangar where his armour-bots were waiting, Steve, down the hall to his room. Before he could step into the elevator, however, Steve caught his arm and handed him something.

“Here, I finished,” he said, smiling, before taking off at a trot down the hall.

Tony stepped in the elevator and while he was shooting down to the hangar, he looked at what Steve had given him. It was two sheets of paper torn from his sketchbook. The top one was DUM-E from the other day in the workshop. Somehow, Steve had captured more than DUM-E’s shape, he’d caught his spirit. And Tony knew it was dumb to think of his little bot as having spirit, but he did, really. Tony had programmed him to.

But it was the next sheet that took Tony’s breath away. It was the sketch of himself Steve had been finishing today. He’d seen a glimpse of it in progress, but now it was done. Tony’s feet hung over the chair arm, a hint of movement to them. He must have been tapping them in time to the music. He had his headphones on and a soft smile on his face. His eyes were fixed on the tablet in his lap.

He looked happy.

Tony didn’t have much time to dissect that, as the elevator arrived and the doors sprung open. He tucked the drawings carefully in the corner of the elevator and gave JARVIS explicit instructions to bring them down where DUM-E could _extraordinarily carefully_ carry them to his desk. He hoped that saying _extraordinarily carefully_ four times, plus one of the drawings being of DUM-E himself, would prevent the bot from deciding to make a smoothie out of them instead.

Tony met the others in the quinjet, his armour on, but the faceplate up. Normally, he and Thor would fly alongside, but he had distributed a lot of new tech since their last mission and he wanted to be around to answer questions.

Steve asked the first one the second Tony stepped onto the jet. “Tony, what are these?”

“Those’re your gauntlets.”

“They look...different. For instance, I never used to have gauntlets. I used to have… gloves.”

“I upgraded them - look!” Tony stood carefully off to the side, then reached over and gripped Steve’s left wrist and held it out. He moved his grip to Steve’s fingers and bent them just right. The shield shot off the floor and affixed itself to the gauntlet with an audible clang. Steve’s eyes went wide. “But wait, there’s more!” Tony gripped the edge of the shield and tugged as hard as he could. It stayed attached to Steve’s hand. He then grabbed Steve’s right hand, encased in the other glove and placed it on the shield. The magnet released and the shield came off easily into Steve’s hand.

He stared for a moment, then tried it again twice himself. He grinned up at Tony and opened his mouth the speak, but Bruce interrupted, calling T minus two minutes to target. Tony watched Steve snap instantly back into Captain mode, the pleasure from his new toy having been enough to temporarily slip him into Steve.

“Alright, Team. Remember, you’ve each got a buddy now. Make sure your cuffs are on and working. If it buzzes or turns red, check in on your buddy. Don’t forget to communicate. I don’t want anyone going in solo and trying to save a buddy in trouble without alerting the team. The point of this system isn’t to turn an amazing team of six into three fractured partnerships, it’s a backup system to keep everyone safe. We’re still a team. Alright, Thor and Bruce, Nat and Clint. I’ve got Tony. Let’s hit ‘em hard.”

Clint clapped softly. “Good speech, Cap.”

“Oh look, Clint volunteers to clean the quinjet next time we deal with alien frogs,” Steve quipped, and Tony choked on the water he’d been downing.

Then they were hitting the ground and pouring out of the jet.

It wasn’t until Tony was face-to-face, mid-air with a six-armed, metal robot...thing that he realized he’d completely forgotten to review the Assemble briefing. He’d been too distracted by Steve’s new tech and had flown into the battle blind.

“J, stats please!” he called, dodging a laser blast from the aggressive robot. JARVIS spewed what he could up on the HUD, but it wasn’t much. There was a weak spot in its casing, under its arm, however, and Tony dipped and dove until he caught it with a repulsor blast. The octo-bot dropped to the ground with a satisfying crash.

Tony zipped around the parking lot they had landed in, repulsor blasts bringing down bot after bot. He kept one eye on the new section of his HUD, though, watching his teammates’ bio comm stats, and tracking their new tech’s performances.

Widow’s bites were operating at peak efficiency with less downtime between shocks. Hawkeye had only used basic arrows so far, but the new quiver seemed to be working out. There wasn’t anything he could have done for Thor, and he and Bruce had already optimized Hulk’s stretchy pants.

It was Steve that Tony watched the most. He tried, and failed, to convince himself that it was because Steve was his buddy and it was his responsibility to watch him; he would have been watching him anyway. The shield was an extension of Steve’s arm and he picked up the new controls with the gauntlets amazingly quickly.

The battle raged on. They were a well-oiled machine and the partnering system seemed to be working out. Nat took a sharp shock to the head and Clint called it before taking down her attacker with a well-directed arrow. Even Hulk seemed into it, sticking closer to Thor than usual.

Tony was wrestling with a particularly tenacious bot when JARVIS flashed a warning in the corner of his HUD. “Captain Rogers appears to be in mild distress, Sir.”

Tony grabbed his combatant recklessly by the neck, dodged one laser blast, took another to the chest before getting in a shot of his own to its head. When that barely slowed it down, Tony grabbed one of its wrists and pulled as hard as he could. The armour protested, but with an unholy screech of tearing metal and snapping wires, the arm came free. Tony dropped the arm to the ground, pressed his palm to the hole where it was once attached and fired.

He tossed the disabled robot aside and swooped in low over the corner of the lot where Steve was surrounded by an advancing circle of the things. He landed beside him, inside the circle of robots. They raised their weapons threateningly.

Steve chucked the shield across the circle, knocking three bots across the lot and into the wall of a nearby building, but the circle simply closed the gap, pressing in closer. Tony stepped in front of Steve and smiled at his indignant huff. The shield came back to his hand with a resounding clang.

“Hey, Cap?” Tony called, holding both palms out towards the advancing crowd, spinning slowly, back-to-back with Steve. “Remember that neat new trick with your magnetized gauntlet? Smack that bad boy to my back.”

There was a moment of pause, then he felt the pressure of Steve’s hand snapping to the back plate. A small alert lit up on the HUD and Tony shot into the air, pointedly ignoring the surprised squeal behind him. He felt Steve scrabbled against the back of the suit until he found the foothold that had popped out as soon as he latched on.

Tony landed on the other side of the parking lot. There was some squirming and muffled grunting from behind him. “Tony how the f- “

“Other gauntlet, just have to touch them together.”

A second later, Steve sprung free, and they advanced on the group of robots, scattering them before they could re-form their assault formation. Steve flung the shield, knocking several off their feet then caught it and turned to face Tony, shield held out in front of him. Tony activated the chest repulsor - incredibly strong but hard to control and directed it at the shield. Steve slid back a few feet, then braced himself and angled the shield, decimating the ranks of bots in one sizzling sweep.

It wasn’t long before Thor announced that he had found the source of the bots control and a moment later they all went limp as one, crashing to the ground in a pile of metal and awkward limbs. Tony and Steve came to a stop in the middle of the lot, catching their breath and scanning the area one more time for any additional threats.

All was quiet.

“Want a ride back to the tower?” Tony asked, giddy and surging with adrenaline.

Steve said nothing, but grinned and slapped his hand to Tony’s back again. They flew off together, and while Steve probably hadn’t meant for it to be that loud, Tony heard Steve’s _whoop_ of joy as they blasted through the air.

After being de-armoured, Tony followed Steve down the hall to the elevator, mostly so he could tell him about his brilliant idea.

“Steve, Steve.” He bounced along on his toes, already halfway through mental blueprints. “I’ve had a brilliant idea.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Steve rolled his eyes, but Tony recognized the charged thrill of a battle well-fought woven into his voice. “More brilliant than your little modification?” Steve gestured to Tony’s back.

“Definitely. EMP,” Tony pointed out with enthusiasm. “I should have one built into the armour! I could have taken out an entire block of those things if I’d had an EMP. All in one blast. I could add one. It wouldn’t be hard. There are some parts I’d need…” Tony trailed off when he caught sight of Steve’s expression. It was odd, and he couldn’t read it. He tensed, hit with the worry that Steve was going to get upset again about him working too much. Things had been going alright lately, he didn’t want to fight again now.

But Steve broke into a smile. “That sounds great. You should definitely have one of those. The new comms worked perfectly, by the way. I liked being able to see your green dot the whole time. And thanks for the lift. Though a little warning would have been nice.” Steve’s lips twitched, amused.

“You think I should build the EMP?” Tony tried, carefully., stepping into the elevator behind Steve.

“Yeah. I don’t know what that is, but if it’s as useful as you say, we’ll probably need it again soon.” Steve leaned against the back wall of the elevator, tugging at his uniform until the helmet and gloves were off, and the top was half undone. His shoulders relaxed and he slipped easily back into just Steve.

“It’ll mean some long days in the lab. It’s a big project, I might have to build a whole new armour from scratch…”

There was a pause and then, bizarrely, “I trust you,” was all Steve said, turning back to the snaps on his uniform, a barely there blush blooming across his cheeks. Tony stared at the side of Steve’s face, only seeing comfortable honesty there. And, as they rode up to their respective floors in silence, all a stunned Tony could think was, _well, I love that man._

 

* * *

 

The two of them ended up alternating between Steve’s balcony and Tony’s workshop over the next couple of weeks. They were probably in the workshop more, but Tony had a lot to accomplish and Steve didn’t want to push his nights even later. It became clear, however, that a lot of the time Tony spent in his chair, surrounded by screens, was research that could easily be done anywhere, as long as he had his tablet and a set of headphones.

Steve continued to draw Tony, and his creations, working his way through several sketchbooks in record time. Tony seemed to have programmed JARVIS to turn his music off, or very low, whenever Steve showed up. Steve was pretty sure it made Tony uncomfortable, working in silence, but they often filled the room with chatter instead, and that seemed to help.

About a month after they had found this tentative balance, Steve was sprawled on the workshop couch reading a memo from SHIELD on his own tablet (Tony had given it to him, telling him he was never allowed to read anything on paper again, as long as he lived) while Tony muttered at a pile of incomprehensible tech.

Steve heard the muttering turn R-rated and glanced over, concerned. Tony was working his bottom lip and rapping his fingers against the arc reactor. He looked stressed and uncomfortable. “Hey, Tony. You know, you can put your music on. I don’t mind,” Steve said, trying very hard not to mind.

Tony turned in his chair. “No, it’s okay. I uh - “ He tossed aside the bizarre looking tool he’d been brandishing threateningly at the pile of parts and rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Actually, are you socked in? I could use a break.”

Steve dropped his tablet on the cushion beside him, secretly grateful for an excuse to stop forcing himself through the mind-numbingly boring memo. “Me too.”

“So...” There was suddenly something sinister in Tony’s tone. “I was thinking now would be a wonderful time for you to tell me how you learned to cheat at cards.”

Tony grinned when Steve’s mouth fell open. Steve couldn’t believe that Tony had been watching him closely enough to notice. His cheeks heated as he stammered pointlessly. “How -?”

“I saw. Poker night.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was having too much fun watching you take the super spies to school, and them none the wiser. You’re very good. If I hadn’t walked behind you to get a drink, I never would have noticed.”

Steve dropped his eyes to where his fingers lay twisting in his lap. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have cheated with you guys, it’s not fair. It’s just - it’s kind of habit.”

Tony waved his apology away. “Are you kidding? It was amazing. And, ‘habit’? Now I have to know.”

Steve didn’t mind telling the story, but even if he did, he still wouldn’t have been able to resist the look Tony was giving him. He sighed, tipping his eyes up to the ceiling. “Ok. You know about me, who I was before the serum?”

Tony settled into his chair. “Sure. A bit.”

Steve was pretty sure that meant, “I’ve read all your files multiple times,” but he didn’t press. “Okay, so I was a sickly kid and I spent a lot of time sitting around in bed, trying not to die. And my best friend was also Bucky Barnes, who I’m sure you know about as well.” Tony nodded.

“Well, Bucky was an asshole and decided that with all this downtime we should learn to do something useful. So we learned some card stuff. He had a friend I never met who taught him most of the tricks, then Buck would come over and show me. I had a lot of free time so I got pretty good at it.”

Tony picked a box with three million wires sticking out of it up off the floor and started fiddling with it. He was still clearly listening, however. Every time Steve paused for breath his eyes flicked up.

“Then I joined the army. Then the Howling Commandos. And we had a lot of downtime, and we moved around a lot so most of the time all we knew was each other. So, of course, we started out playing cards, and that got competitive. But the rest of the gang didn’t know that Bucky and I knew some sleight of hand which we obviously used to our advantage.”

“Obviously.”

“Eventually, the guys figured it out. I think they caught Buck with a card up his sleeve, I’m sure it was his fault.” Steve winked, and Tony laughed. “Anyway, there was no way to stop us cheating, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“So the other guys asked us to teach them, and the game changed. It moved from who is the best at poker, to who is the best at cheating. After a while, we all got so good that anyone watching would have thought it was a normal poker game, but none of us were playing fair.” Steve paused, overcome with a wave of nostalgia. He felt Tony’s eyes on him, but couldn’t meet them.

Tony finally broke the silence. “That’s amazing.”

Steve chuckled, the tension that was building between his ribs breaking. “Yeah, I guess it kind of stuck. Even now, I find it hard to play normally. Most messed up version of house rules ever.” He laughed again and Tony joined him.

“Well, now you have to teach me,” Tony said, matter of fact.

“What?” Steve shot him a look.

“I need this skill, Rogers. It’s crucial. Obviously.”

“... obviously.”

“It’s settled then.” Tony eyed him for a moment. “You know, I think that’s my second favourite thing about you.”

“Second? What’s the first?”

Tony grinned. “Oh, is that the time? We’d better get back to work!”

Steve shook his head and picked his tablet back up.

“If you - uh - if you have any other stories, though. Feel free to pipe up. It’s nice. To listen.”

Steve put the tablet back down.

He ended up lying flat on the couch, his feet hanging over the far arm, his eyes closed, while he told Tony stories about Brooklyn as a kid, Bucky, the Commandos, and the war. Tony laughed, rolled his eyes, and sighed at all the right places. It wasn’t exactly quiet, but Steve was completely comfortable.

“Whoops, brace yourself!” Tony called, and Steve looked up just in time to see a large metal panel come loose from the armour and fall to the ground with a resounding crash. Steve thought back to all the times Tony had knocked things over in the workshop and not said a thing. He suspected the warning had been meant entirely for him, and he was overcome by how grateful he was.

Tony grunted, struggling with the panel. “Need a hand?” Steve called out.

“How about two?” Tony grinned at him.

“I guess, but you owe me one, Stark.” Steve lifted the panel easily and held it in place so Tony could begin screwing it back on.

“Oh yeah? Well, just let me know when you need a _hand_ back.” Tony managed to shoot Steve a flirty smirk with a mouthful of screws.

Steve was temporarily stunned breathless when Tony pressed against him to reach the last screw. These feelings were getting harder and harder to ignore every day. Not just the physical effect of having Tony’s warmth next to him, but the tingly rush of pleasure at the thought that Tony wanted to be there, close to him - wanted to flirt. Steve tried to think of something to say back, but JARVIS beat him to it.

“Captain? You asked me to let you know when Dr. Banner was finished with the gym. It’s free now.”

“Oh. Thanks, JARVIS.” Steve hesitated, unwilling to break free of Tony’s orbit. “I guess I should go.”

Tony didn’t move. “Right, okay. Thanks for the hands.”

“Anytime.”

 

* * *

 

Steve started to turn away, off to the gym, and Tony was suddenly struck with the intense fear that this was his last chance. That, for some reason, if he let Steve walk away, they would never be anything more than friends. And despite all the reasons he should let exactly that happen, he couldn't.

“Steve, wait.”

Steve stopped, turned back towards Tony and met his gaze with curiosity that quickly morphed into surprise at whatever he could see in Tony’s expression. A few steps brought Tony across the small space between them. Tony’s hand fluttered up, away from his side and brushed across Steve’s stomach, fingertips lightly grazing the soft fabric of his cotton t-shirt. Steve’s eyes went wide, and Tony saw longing and fear and heat and sadness there.

He wanted to turn his eyes warm instead, so he brought his hand back to Steve’s side, but this time he pinched one of the creases of fabric between his thumb and knuckle and tugged. Steve gave into the silent request, taking one large step forward until they were nearly toe-to-toe. Tony’s hand remained hanging from Steve’s shirt, wanting to spread flat, slide under, feel the skin it hid, but he waited.

Steve didn’t move further, his arms hanging limply at his sides. The crease between his brows deepened, and Steve opened and closed his mouth a few times without speaking. Tony didn’t know which words, which excuses, Steve was building up behind his lips, but he _would not_ give this battle up before it had even been fought. If Steve wanted to say, “let’s not,” he was going to have to say it and mean it, because - maybe for this first time in his life - Tony wasn’t going to walk away without a fight, without making a case for a _them._

Steve’s mouth opened again but all that came out was a strange, strangled sound that somehow managed to be a swear word, without actually being a word at all. And then he collided with Tony.

Steve slammed into him with enough force that it would have knocked Tony back several feet if Steve’s sudden embrace wasn’t holding him upright. Steve squeezed him impossibly close and buried his face in Tony’s neck. He mumbled out something unintelligible, partially because it was muffled against Tony’s skin and partially because Tony’s brain was screaming so loudly at the sudden turn of events, he wasn’t sure he could hear anything else at the moment.

The brush of Steve’s lips shifted from whispers to light presses along Tony’s collar. Tony tucked his forehead against Steve’s chest, grabbed two fistfuls of his t-shirt, and tried to focus on breathing.

Steve lifted his head, working his way up Tony’s neck, along his jaw, with the lightest brushes of his lips, barely kisses, more like test-kisses. The scientific method, Tony thought, slightly hysterically, and then Steve rounded the corner of his jaw and the tests were concluded and the results must have been satisfactory because _this._

This was a kiss.

Neither held back, working out months of confusion and wanting and impatience against each other. Steve held Tony tight, nearly bending him over backwards and Tony hooked a hand around his neck, pulling him in even closer then shifting up to twist into his hair. Their mouths slotted together, hot and eager, and Tony found Steve’s tongue with his own, tasted him, sucked Steve’s bottom lip between his own, then angled to bring them together again into a hard kiss.

Feeling suddenly frantic, Tony tried to make himself pull back, but the best he managed was a shift in the target of his attack, sliding his lips along Steve’s cheek, thrilling at the harsh scratch of his stubble. He used the hand in Steve’s hair to guide his head down, chin towards his chest, so he could taste the tip of his nose and press his mouth against each of Steve’s eyelids. The frenzied feeling wouldn’t settle, wouldn’t ease, and he couldn’t help the dread that started curling through his gut. Like if he stopped tasting Steve, stopped dragging him in again for one more kiss, Steve would say whatever he’d been wanting to say before he got all up in Tony’s space in the best possible way.

“Tony,” Steve muttered, and there was so much affection in that one word that Tony found the courage to still, to let out a sigh, and step back, giving Steve scary space to breathe, to speak.

“Tony,” he said again, stronger this time. His eyes fluttered open, but instead of stepping back he pushed forward again, closing the gap Tony had made and bringing them chest-to-chest, forehead to forehead. “This is crazy, isn’t it?”

A laugh burst out of Tony’s chest. This was a lot of things and crazy was definitely one of them. “Yeah, this is utterly insane.”

Steve’s hands slid up Tony’s back, alternating between tugging him closer and kneading into the tense muscles along his spine. Tony let out a long, slow breath, mixed with a groan, and he caught Steve’s smile in the bottom edge of his vision.

“I wanna do it anyway.” Steve’s voice was breathy and nervous.

Tony smirked. “At least buy me dinner first.” Steve huffed out an indignant laugh and Tony mentally handed himself another “Made Steve Laugh” trophy. “But yeah, me too. I want it, whatever it is. Fuck consequences.”

Their hands seemed to be ignoring the serious conversation completely, preferring to paw at each other, tangling in clothing, furrowing through hair and sliding along jawlines. Steve’s weight against his chest was starting to be too much for Tony to support but he didn’t dare step back for fear Steve would too. “Tony,” Steve repeated, and Tony didn’t think he’d ever get sick of hearing his name fall off of Steve’s lips that way.

“Mmm?”

“I want this. For real. I know - I know I’m not the kind of thing you, you know, want. I just - I want so much from you and it’s not fair if I don’t tell you that I - “

Tony’s brain caught up with the words and he staggered backwards, breaking Steve’s hold and disrupting his monologue. “Excuse me?”

Steve spluttered wordlessly, clearly confused.

“Who on earth told you that you’re not ‘the kind of thing I want’?” Tony asked.

“I - No one told me that. I know the kind of people you date, Tony. How you date. It’s okay, I’m not - I mean, if I were as good at talking to people as you are, I’d probably do the same. But I’m not. Like that. I’m not flashy, I don’t like going to loud parties, or talking to the press or your kind of music. I’m not in your world.” Steve shrugged, like somehow it was okay, normal even, that he thought that.

“You’re insane,” Tony replied, a little harsher than intended.

“I - what?”

“You’re utterly insane. And completely wrong. I want you. Probably far more than is entirely fair. I don’t care about the other stuff. I don’t want you to be the same as the other people I’ve dated or the same as me. I want _you._ Nothing else matters. I like what we have, what we do. I like _our_ world.”

Steve brushed his thumb across Tony’s cheek and pulled him in for another kiss. “I like our world too,” he whispered, wide-eyed and breathless. It was a good look for him, and Tony was going to make it his mission to make him look like that as often as possible.

 

* * *

 

Somehow it was working.

It wasn’t always easy. At times, Tony’s work with power tools, or his arguments with JARVIS, were too much and Steve had to leave the workshop. Or Tony would start to find his headphones claustrophobic and the balcony too still, so he’d press his lips to Steve’s before heading back down to his den of screaming power tools and screaming music.

Steve taught Tony how to palm cards, and Tony taught Steve how to use the arc welder. Steve suspected that that one was less than altruistic on Tony’s part since he set him to work immediately after Steve showed any kind of competency with it. But Steve found he liked the steady focus of welding, as long as he had earplugs in, so he didn’t call Tony on it.

They carved out time for each other. And they met in the middle. The common room couch became their shared space, and for at least part of most days, they could be found curled up together, either watching a movie - one in sound, one in silence - or with books. Sometimes talking, cuddling, and more often than not, kissing.

They hadn’t gone much further, and Steve knew he was the one holding back. Tony had made it gently clear that he was ready whenever Steve was ready, but with no pressure at all. Steve was embarrassed to admit, even to himself, that he still harboured some deep-seated fear that after a night with Tony, he’d be put out with the trash. He knew Tony wasn’t like that anymore, hadn’t been for a long time. But a tiny, yet loud, part of his brain that housed all his illogical insecurities couldn't forget that he had been, once upon a time. And Steve knew he wouldn’t be able to come back from that. Tony was it for him, and he had to know for sure that he was it for Tony.

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and they hadn’t had an Assemble all week so the whole team was feeling dopey and over-relaxed - if it was possible for Tony to ever feel either of those things. Steve had turned off JARVIS’ sleep alerts, but by his own estimation, Tony had only slept for a grand total of twelve hours the entire week. Steve had coaxed him out of his workshop for a brief moment of stillness, but he sensed the frenzied energy coiling inside him that would pull him back down soon.

Tony sat with his legs stretched out so he could prop his feet up on the coffee table. His headphones were on and almost certainly filling his ears with deafening music, but for Steve the room was soft and silent. Steve leaned back against the arm of the sofa, one leg bent and pressed against Tony’s side from toe to knee, the other extended across Tony’s thighs. Tony had his tablet propped up against Steve’s calf and was flicking at an astonishing rate through the pages of a journal article with a title Steve wasn’t entirely sure was made up of real words. His other hand was wrapped around Steve’s bent leg, occasionally tapping out the rhythm of the song he was listening to against the bare skin between the cuff of Steve’s pants and the top of his sock.

And with the clarity of putting on glasses with the right prescription for the first time, Steve knew in an instant that he didn’t want to wait any longer.

He wanted Tony, who spent countless nights building the equipment their family needed to stay safe, who was never satisfied that what he’d done was enough, who ripped apart his prized possession to give Steve a handhold out of a tough situation. He knew Tony was it for him, nothing else mattered, and he wanted to show him that.

He set his book on the floor and reached forward to pluck Tony’s tablet off his lap. Tony shot him a curious look, but watched, silent, while Steve set the StarkPad aside and twisted up and over until he was straddling Tony’s lap.

He gently removed Tony’s headphones and set them on the table beside the tablet. With Tony free from technology - though almost certainly still carrying around at least one circuit board and part of the armour’s finger, or something equally odd, in his pocket - Steve took his face in both hands, bent down, and kissed him.

Tony melted into the kiss, leaned back against the couch, and let Steve drive. Warm hands slipped under the hem of Steve’s shirt, caressing the sensitive skin along his waistband. Apparently, since Steve had decided now was the time, his body felt the need to pitch in, assuring him that now wasn’t actually soon enough, thank you.

He shifted his hips forward and Tony gasped, his fingers tightening for a second on Steve’s hips which only made Steve want more. He let one hand slide around from the side of Tony’s face to the back of his neck while the other worked its way over his chest, ending up splayed flat over the hard circle of the arc reactor, hidden by Tony’s shirt.

Steve rolled forward again, this time feeling the press of Tony’s arousal against his own. He moaned, and Tony broke the kiss, tipping his head over the back of the couch, pinching his eyes closed, and taking a deep breath.

“Hold on there cowboy, I need a second or you’re going to have a mess on your hands.”

Steve dropped both hands lower, gripping Tony’s belt buckle, then leaned forward to whisper into Tony’s ear. “I want a mess on my hands… or somewhere else, if you prefer.”

He leaned back in time to see Tony’s eyes shoot open. “Steve?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to be that awkward guy that can’t read extremely unsubtle innuendo, but I’m holding on to the very last of whatever sanity I had left, and I just need to know - are you trying to seduce me right now?”

Steve squeezed with his thighs and preened at the groan it pushed out of Tony. “Yes. I am.”

“Well, shit, Rogers. Warn a guy. I have a heart condition you know.”

“So do I,” Steve told him, laughing.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Are you about to say something disgustingly sappy about feelings and stuff?”

“Nope. The serum kicked my heart rate up to nearly double normal, so technically I’m constantly tachycardic.”

Tony’s mouth dropped open and Steve grinned, feeling for once like he had the upper hand in their banter. Then Tony’s mouth closed and curved into a _wicked_ smile and Steve gave up on ever having the upper hand again.

Tony let his thumb dip below the top of Steve’s pants, teasingly close to where Steve wanted those fingers more than anything. “Want to see if we can double it again?” Tony asked cheekily.

As one, they tumbled off the couch and stumbled their way up to Steve’s bedroom. Clothes hit the floor, and Steve hit the mattress, pulling Tony down with him. Every inch of Tony’s skin begged to be explored, stroked, tasted. The need that was coiled deep in his gut twisted and tightened until he couldn’t hold back the little noises of desperation that leaked out between clenched teeth. Tony whispered soothing promises in Steve’s ear and tucked himself between his thighs, taking them both in hand.

Steve’s forehead found Tony’s as the pleasure built, needing to suck in gasps of air too badly to press their lips together, but touching everywhere else that he could. The room filled with the gasps and groans and moans they breathed against each other’s skin. Tony’s hand twisted just so and Steve tumbled over the edge, fingertips dipping into Tony’s hips to keep him from falling into complete oblivion. Tony followed soon after, crying out and pressing his face into Steve’s chest and he worked himself through it. They collapsed, panting and sweating, on Steve mattress, sheets half-kicked off and wild, and even in the happy, sated buzz he floated in, Steve couldn’t help but imagine all the wonderful ways he was going to get to pull those noises from Tony again.

Steve was sure that any moment now Tony would kiss him and head back down to the workshop. He knew there was no fighting that need to build that he’d sensed earlier. But instead, Tony crawled over Steve’s body, lay down with a _humph,_ and started snoring.

Steve lay there, stunned, for several minutes before he really believed that Tony was asleep, but he was. Tony had managed to flatten himself completely over Steve’s chest, so none of him touched the mattress except for his feet tucked between Steve’s ankles, and his arms sprawled out to the side.

Steve let out his tensely held breath as slowly as he could and let himself sink into the mattress under Tony. His eyes drifted shut as he settled in. He wasn’t tired, but he could stay here all night, just listening. He was pretty sure Tony Stark’s satisfied snoring was the best sound in the whole world.

 

* * *

 

Tony didn’t like emptiness; he didn't like still. Still was where unpleasant thoughts crept in. Quiet was where a terrifying _nothing_ loomed large and black and ominous. But somehow, over time, Steve’s double-time heartbeat had started to fill the silence, and Steve’s stories had easily replaced most of his pounding music. Tony knew Steve still thought he didn’t sleep enough, but when he came to bed at 3am, scared of what he might face when he closed his eyes, Steve was always willing to use hands and mouth and whispered promises to find him release, so he would fall into a deep sleep faster. And on the nights when Tony woke up an hour later anyway, shaking in a cold sweat, Steve was there.

Tony faced the beginning of every day wrapped in the arms of a man he loved and who loved him back. Even when his feet itched to hit the floor, his brain already miles into a creation marathon, it didn’t scare him, because he knew what he was coming back to.

***

There were two modes: Captain America mode, and Steve mode. Cap kept the team together, saved lives, saved the world. And when he found it hard to find Steve again after too long behind star-studded armour and a vibranium shield, Tony always knew what he needed. With just a touch, or a few words, Tony could push him to be Cap, even when he found it hard to be strong, or ease him back into the soft vulnerability of Steve.

In Steve mode, he didn’t like noise, but somehow Tony’s manic rambling and explosive engineering didn’t feel like noise anymore. It felt like home. Like peace. So he carved out quiet in a corner of Tony’s workshop, and he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, unless Tony was there too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are at the end! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed. <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :D <3
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr at festiveferret.tumblr.com, or hit me up for links to the lovely discords I hang out in. I love to chat with people!


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